Louisville-based Humana Inc. just wrapped up a robust 2018, with the stock price soaring to new heights and another successful round of enrollment in its Medicare Advantage programs.

And those rumors about partnering with Walgreens — just speculation, the CEO says.

As one of the country's largest providers of privately run Medicare plans, Humana reported net income of $901 million in the third quarter and raised their adjusted earnings-per-share guidance for 2018 by 46 cents, from $11.52 to $11.96.

Analysts tracking the company and its competitors expect that despite a dip in the market that dropped company's share price from $355 to the $260 range and a sharp reduction of enrollment in the insurer's prescription drug plans, the insurance giant is set for another strong year. Humana employs about 50,000 people, 12,000 of them in Louisville.

At health care conferences this month, chief executive Bruce Broussard and Brian Kane, chief financial officer, offered more insights into rumors surrounding Humana's interests in acquiring a stake in retail pharmacy, why a successful play for Medicaid business in Florida is a big deal and what they think will continue to drive the growth in the next few years.

Here's a look at some of the topics Kane and Broussard tackled:

There's no plan to take a stake in Walgreens

A Wall Street Journal report surfaced last month that retail pharmacy giant Walgreens and Humana were in talks to take potential stakes in each other to expand a small clinic partnership in Kansas City. The speculation on several deals involving Humana and other players has been fueled during the last year by the acquisition involving CVS and insurance giant Aetna.

Broussard was asked during his appearance at the Goldman Sachs Annual Healthcare CEO Conference on Jan. 3 what Humana would get out of taking an equity stake in Walgreens, and he said in part "not much."

Even though there may be some benefits to expanding pharmacy channels in some locations and they expect to add more clinics with Walgreens in some markets in 2019, Humana isn't interested in a larger deal. "It was more speculation...than anything else," Broussard said.

Even without a Walgreens deal, mergers and acquisitions will continue

Kane, who spoke at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Monday in California, and Broussard acknowledged that with an aging population and predicted growth in the Medicare Advantage market, big players United Health, Aetna and Humana are beginning to separate themselves from smaller companies, including Molina Healthcare.

Kane was asked about the dichotomy of opinions among investors who think it makes sense for Humana to be acquired by another company and those who believe Humana should be shopping for big purchases.

Neither is necessary, Kane said. "We feel great about our stand-alone strategy ... we feel really good about where we're positioned in the market" with top-line revenue of $60 billion, he said.

He pointed to the billion-dollar deals where Humana teamed with two private equity firms to buy Kindred Healthcare and Curo Health, which will dramatically expand the company's reach in the home health industry. "We're not afraid to pull the trigger," Kane said.

Health Insurance Fee will return in 2020

One expense looming for the company and other big players is the return of a federal health insurance fee — or HIF — in 2020. In 2018, Congress approved a one-year moratorium on collecting the taxes for 2019. That ban is set to lapse in 2020, and will cost Humana an estimated $1 billion.

Broussard said they will try not to increase costs too much to offset the added expense, but they won't be able to eat all of it.

Prescription drug plan enrollment sank by 15 percent

One hit to the stock price came in late November when Humana disclosed that its enrollment of about 5 million in its prescription drug plans would drop in the coming year by between 750,000 to 800,000. That was a boost from the original estimate of a 500,000-member drop.

Kane said Humana pioneered low-cost plans through a partnership with Walmart nearly a decade ago, and others dropped prices to lure customers. Managers made the decision not to try to match competitors' prices because "it's important we earn a margin in this market....it just didn't work for us to match those prices."

A big win in Florida

Humana was among nine health plans that won five-year Medicaid contracts worth several billions of dollars last spring. The competition to provide long-term care services to 3 million residents on Medicaid was fierce.

Kane said during his interview that the Florida contract "was a big deal" because they hope it opens an opportunity to compete for contracts centered on people with dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid. Winning the business is also as a boost to Humana's ambitions to grow their footprint in Texas and other states where the company already has a large presence, he said.

Staying laser-focused on caring for people with chronic conditions

Broussard predicted that companies that find innovative ways to use technology, such as devices to track and monitor the conditions of people living on their own, will allow them to win the battle to deliver quality care at reasonable prices.

A bathroom scale and a sudden increase in a person's weight, for instance, can alert caregivers that an elderly person has begun taking on fluids. Humana spends $500 million a year on foot ulcers. The company is looking at all kinds of "predictive" devices that will help monitor patients more closely and head off more serious conditions, he said.